


Heartsigh

by manubibi



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Insecurity, Lime, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Reigisa Week, fear of loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5688088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manubibi/pseuds/manubibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for Reigisa Week's prompt 1: holding hands. </p>
<p>
  <i>Rei is perfect, or Nagisa sees him as such anyway. He doesn't see his embarrassing side, because to him it's only funny and cute. He does not see the other's vanity, to him Rei just states facts and makes sure to show confidence those times when he flaunts. And he likes him like that. A bit silly, even though he doesn't know he is, and for this reason even the more endearing and attractive beyond his beauty and elegance. <br/>How could Nagisa think to be on his level, intellectually or otherwise? </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartsigh

Rei's place is really big. Nagisa noticed immediately, since he went inside it last year for the first time and observed a hospitable ambience, but elegant too. The furniture is always shiny, the wood is rich, the decorations colors with sober or neuter tints, except a few hints of extravagance. For example, the soft carpet with lots of colors splotched on its surface like it was a work in progress by Jackson Pollock.   
Nagisa is not much knowledgeable in decoration and interns, but he could not imagine anything different after having met Rei. Moderate, but bizarre too. Serious, but knows how to laugh and enjoy himself. Smart and literate, but also knowing of the value of ignorance as a possibility to learn and evolve while making mistakes too. Nagisa sees all these things as natural, but also in awe of the knowledge Rei seemed to have stored like some hoarding-crazed man. Of his human richness too. He got surprised when the other gave up something meaningful for himself, something that would have made him happy, to help solving a problem which, in the end, could have been solved through a calm and collected talk between his friends. All things Rin could not be though, two years ago.   
And Nagisa is constantly in awe when, during their conversations on this and that, Rei finds a way to show his knowledge and wisdom off on various topics, from the deeper ones to the silliest. Rei is perfect, or Nagisa sees him as such anyway. He doesn't see his embarrassing side, because to him it's only funny and cute. He does not see the other's vanity, to him Rei just states facts and makes sure to show confidence those times when he flaunts. And he likes him like that. A bit silly, even though he doesn't know he is, and for this reason even the more endearing and attractive beyond his beauty and elegance.   
How could Nagisa think to be on his level, intellectually or otherwise?   
It's something he wondered a lot recently, especially now that the end of high school is nigh, and after that who knows what will happen to them, what they will do with the relationship formed during their second year and nurtured in their third. High school is almost over, and Nagisa has been feeling like there's a clock ticking inside of him for weeks now, and yet as always he covers its sound with smiles and hugs, and then changes the topic when Rei, always the attentive one, picks up on those few moments when Nagisa believes he is not being observed. It's stressful, from this point of view, to be anxious - him! Nagisa, of all people! - and to not know how to get rid of it is terrible, especially for a boy with a personality as light and positive as his is. Lately he found himself thinking Rei will leave, determined, somewhere else to be super smart, to be an inventor or something and fill people up with awe and admiration the same way he does with Nagisa. He will leave him behind, their road will part and, of them, they'll only leave a very good pair of years in high school.   
  
"Nagisa-kun?"  
His melancholic thoughts are interrupted by Rei's voice, and Nagisa blinks caught staring at the void. "Eh?" He responds, blushing lightly. Rei throws him a look half amused and half impatient, and then repeats himself: "what do you want to do?"  
Nagisa looks around in Rei's house's living room. It's ornated with taste, without hoarding too many decorations but without declining into cheap minimalism either. There is a lot of brown, the furniture is mostly in dark wood, and logically enough they are all positioned distant from the elegant fireplace with glass walls around it, in a corner next to an armchair with a small library. Near the reading corner is a comfortable couch. In front of it, on the opposite wall, there's a big, nice flat television with, of course, a noticeable collection of DVDs all lined up orderly.   
He's used to all of those things too at this point, but today his eyes focus on the fireplace with a basket for wood in front of it.  
"Let's do a picnic! Since it's only you and me this evening, we could do that indeed!" Nagisa trills, throwing his arms in the air. Rei glances at them, surprised, and then looks at Nagisa with a mix of worry and incredulity. Then he bursts in laughter.   
"A picnic? It's a bit cold outside for a picnic, Nagisa-kun!"  
"No, I meant a picnic... in here, in front of the fireplace! We could grab a blanket and pillows and light the fire."  
Rei, as always, listens to Nagisa seriously, a hundred percent.   
"Well, I suppose it is a nice idea. I have a wool blanket, bentō boxes..."  
"Do you know how to light a dire?" Nagisa asks, already bouncing enthusiastically.  
"Sure I know how to light a fire!" Rei retorts, huffing.   
"Good," Nagisa replies with a calm smile. "So we'll have a picnic and a movie?"   
"Homework first," Rei reminds him, pointing with his thumb to his back where his schoolbag is hanging, and Nagisa's smile fades.   
"Oh. Right."  
  
Once Nagisa is done with the last chemistry exercise, he starts staring at Rei impatiently, his eyes wide and a bright grin on his lips again. When Rei realizes, he raises a brow and then gestures to Nagisa to turn his notebook around to check the exercises and verify they are solved correctly. Nagisa keeps looking at him for a good minute, a bit worried, until Rei raises his gaze to smile at him.  
"Great job, Nagisa-kun!"  
"Yay!" Nagisa squeaks, and then jumps on his feet to stretch up yawning. His stomach growls, announcing them both that he is officially hungry.   
Their picnic, put together hastily but with inevitable caution - after all they still have a diet to follow and Gou always checks them to make sure they're following it - is made of rice, fish and vegetable in reasonable and conscientious quantities. With a snack to end, as a compromise for Nagisa's never-ending hunger for sugar, balanced by the raw veggies.   
"When the year's over," Nagisa announces bringing his bentō box in the living room and sitting on the blanket Rei just spread on the floor, while the other moves to light the fire and then shut the glass case. "... I shall eat like a pig."  
Rei laughs, glancing at him.   
"I don't see you holding back much anyway," he comments, then pays attention to the burning match through the thin wood on bottom of the pile.   
Nagisa mutters something crossing his arms and pouting. Rei smiles at him, affectionately, and it's such a sincere expression that Nagisa cannot really stay irritated for long. He observes the fire instead, fascinated like if it was the first time he sees it. Once the fire burns without dying, Rei closes the glass screen and sits in front of Nagisa on the blanket, thanking for the food.  
  
While they eat in an unusual - for them - silence, Nagisa ends up catching back up on the thread of his thoughts from before.   
È it's a possibility that scares him a lot. After all, him and Rei work out perfectly, as if they've been knowing each other for whole previous lifetimes, as if they had been made to complement each other.   
"Nagisa-kun?" Rei calls him again, shaking him from his thoughts that really do nothing but run in circles.   
"Huh?" Nagisa snaps startled, raising his eyes from the rice.   
Rei frowns, and tilts his head just like Nagisa always does. "I cannot read your mind, but I know there's something wrong."  
Nagisa lowers his eyes and then tries to plaster a smile on his face. "Oh no, it's alright! I'm so happy, I love picnics so much!"  
"Nagisa-kun, you didn't talk in ten minutes, I shall officially worry."  
"Well... it's not like I always have something to say," Nagisa replies, in a lower tone without realizing.   
Rei's lips press into a thin line, but then he sighs softly putting his box aside, and crawls near Nagisa.  
"Tell me," he orders.  
"What?" Nagisa keeps denying, and shoves another meatball in his mouth looking insistently down.  
"Nagisa-kun," Rei calls him again, with a tone that does not allow being ignored, and Nagisa ends up looking back at him indeed. "It won't work. You are sad, and I want to know why. Is it because of school? Your grades are good. Are you worried about the team...?"  
"No," Nagisa finally replies, dropping pretenses and making himself smaller between his shoulder, instinctively. "It's that I'm scared."  
"Of what?" Rei asks, moving even closer. Nagisa looks meditatively to a piece of carrot before putting it down.  
"Of... well, it sounds overused, but I'm scared of losing you," he finally confesses, turning red. "This year we'll finish high school and our roads will part. I cannot follow you, I can't... I mean, I'm not good at certain things like you. And we'll end up doing completely different things, and I expect you'll go far away. Rei-chan can do it because he is so smart," he explains, with his voice thinning out gradually so much that Rei feels compelled to get closer so that the fire crackling won't drown out Nagisa's voice. "I'm just Nagisa."  
"Just Nagisa doesn't seem to be a correct description of you," Rei replies calm, but his face tightens slightly with worry.  
"Yeah, well... the thing is, what if one day you decided that I'm not enough? What if you grow tired of me and find someone better?" Nagisa asks, definitely feeling his worries are trite, but the fact that he had heard something similar before does not make his fears less pressing. "What if one day I make you lose your patience and go away?" He adds, with his voice barely audible. "I'm scared, Rei-chan."  
Rei looks at him, blinking with surprise and not expecting something similar.  
"Nagisa-kun, our relationship is great," he protests, but the other shakes his head.  
"What about tomorrow? In a month? In a year? I need to start making plans for my life, and I want you to be in all of them. I want to be with you forever, Rei-chan," he concludes with a big tear rolling down his cheek. And then another, and then his body begins to bump softly with small, low sobs.  
"Nagisa-kun..." Rei murmurs, but then takes a long sigh, taking the box from the other's hands and putting it aside.  
Nagisa lets him, but dries his eyes immediately. "Nagisa-kun, at this point it's all on you," Rei says quietly.  
"Eh?" Nagisa asks sniffling, his eyes glassy and his cheeks pink. "I want to stay with you."  
"Then it's alright," Rei replies with a smile, but then explains knowing that reply alone won't satisfy Nagisa. "In the last two years I realized these interactions, these affections... they are not random, they are not illogic, an they are not only functional from an evolutional and reproductional point of view - after all, we are both males - but they're also made to complete.  
"We are animals, social animals, loneliness is not for us. We need someone, someone to mirror ourselves in and know ourselves through, to find answers on who we are, it's inevitable," he continues, playing with his fingers, and now his cheeks are red too but with a bit of shyness. "These are important questions. They become part of us, part of what makes us who we are. Our identity forms based on those questions too, and on the answers we give ourselves. I have thought about love too, you know?"  
He looks at Nagisa, with a light smile.   
"Yes?" Nagisa asks, his eyes all wide.   
"Yes. What is it exactly, why does it take us so completely? Why do we sometimes give up everything for it? They're things I still don't have a precise reply for. But in the morning I know that I want to spend the day with you. When I'm home on my own, I miss you. When we fight, I know I want to make up and I know I want to make you laugh if you're not laughing already. Because I like you and that is because you are so fundamentally different from me and I need stimuli. You give me a push to know myself better. Like when I met you, Haruka-senpai, Makoto-senpai... I didn't know I would enjoy swimming, and better yet swimming _with_ someone. You pushed me to figure that ut until I gave up, even though back then you irritated me a lot. But swimming was a big change for me, I found those friends and I discovered you. And what a beautiful discovery!"  
Nagisa curls up hugging his legs against his chest, on fire with pink on his cheeks.   
"Nagisa-kun, passion fades. Love fades. It's obvious, they are feelings provoked by chemical reactions, and after a bit they consume like fire. The strongest fire in the world will eventually die out. The sun will eventually turn off." Rei continues his monologue.  
"Then do you see I'm right?" Nagisa protests, after giving out a gasp.   
"Wait, I am not done. It's true passion and feelings go away sometimes. But that is when reason comes into play. You are a person that challenges me constantly, that puts me out of my comfort zone, that changes my point of view, that pisses me off, that makes me wonder: 'why am I still in this?' See... that's the real question. And my answer so far is that it's worth it."   
It's like he'd been thinking about this really hard for a while, it's like he studied for a specific topic to give Nagisa a full explanation, as if Nagisa had asked him facts about penguins and he'd researched them to explain them to give him all he knows. He turns to look at Nagisa and he's there with his eyes blown wide.  
"So, every time we have a problem, I choose to solve it instead of walking away and instead of deciding that I am better off on my own," he concludes, then takes a calm sigh.  
Nagisa stares at him then looks down, thinking in silence. For a while, the only sound filling the room up is that of the fire burning quietly near them, and then Nagisa's voice sounds again.  
"And what if one day decided it's not worth it anymore?" He asks softly.   
Rei gives him a brief silence, but then kisses his cheek.   
"Nagisa-kun, that is almost impossible. I cannot think of a reason why I should not be with you for my own sake as well. As I said, we are basically opposites, we are different in every way, and yet we fit together so well. Sure, at first I needed a push to see you for the generous, responsible and serious person you are..."  
"Serious? Ha!" Nagisa interrupts him, bursting in laughter.  
"Yes, serious. You are very serious, and mature, and responsible. I would have never chosen anyone else to manage money for our club. Maybe others see you as the class clown and you are, but you are also so much more," Rei replies, completely quiet. "You have an innate talent in understanding other people's moods and you always know what's the right thing to say, and if there's something I know about your future it's that whatever happens you'll make it out just fine," he continues without hiding a certain kind of admiration.  
"R-Rei-chan..." Nagisa whines, hiding his face in embarrassment against his knees. "Stop it!"  
Rei giggles, and then leaves a kiss through the other's blond strands.  
"But it is the truth. I studied you, and I reached the conclusion that you are, with ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine percent of certainty the person for me. The laughable point one percent is only due to the fact that nothing in reality is foreseeable at a hundred percent, except the probability of death sooner or later in life."  
"You're a nerd," Nagisa replies with a mutter, but lifts his head and eventually looks into Rei's purple eyes.  
"Precisely, and as a 'nerd' as you say, this is my way ot telling you that you have nothing to worry about. So, don't worry."  
Nagisa lowers his eyes again, and then snuggles against Rei's chest, who holds him closer.   
"Okay," he replies, deciding to trust that.  
"Okay," Rei repeats, rubbing his arm with calm petting.   
"You're exceptional, Rei-chan," Nagisa adds, to give him a smile.  
"I cannot deny that," Rei replies playfully, fixing his glasses, but then he looks down at Nagisa again caressing his cheek. "But you are too."  
"I..."  
"I won't accept any objection."  
Nagisa sighs, but then nuzzles his head against Rei's arm. "Okay..."  
Rei touches his chin to tilt his head up, and then immediately presses his lips against the other's then wets his lips. "Are you feeling better?" He asks then, with a smile.

Nagisa looks at him, opens his mouth, and then closes it again nodding. Eventually he jumps on him, sending him on the floor rolling. Rei squeaks with surprise, and Nagisa laughs on his lips only to kiss him again, this time closing his eyes and settling on top of him.  
Instead of pushing him away because it's a bit inappropriate, Rei hesitates with his hand on Nagisa's back, and then holds him close with a low murmur, to taste his mouth.  
"Rei-chan, do you have lube? Rubbers?" Nagisa asks in a practical tone. Rei frowns, and then sighs.   
"See? Responsible. Maybe too much... and yeah, I have them," he replies. "Like every other time..."  
Nagisa smiles and kisses Rei again, with his tongue now exploring his mouth even though he already knows the tastes and warmth in Rei's mouth and yet won't ever grow tired of their tongues' contact that turns their guts into fire. Always.  
Nagisa moans softly, with his body moving on top of the other, who fixes his position to hold him closer instead, on top of him. Slowly, with hotness inside and out of their bodies. Their muscles relax, their hands begin tracing paths on each other's bodies with a lower and lower perception of any limit that shouldn't be crossed. Limits imposed on them. In Nagisa's case, it's slightly easier ot ignore them. He is the first to reach between Rei's legs in the end, to rub him, to make him let out the first moan of frustration.   
Rei bites down on his lower lip, tightening his fingers through the constantly messy hair of Nagisa's and pulls his head back to kiss his neck and then lets go of it with a satisfied hum for the fast heartbeats he feels under his own lips.  
But Nagisa slips away from his arms, slides downward and when he uncovers Rei's stomach he starts dropping light, soft kisses on it, which leave behind a trail of warm shivers under his skin.  
"Rei-chan..." He calls him, going back down and up his stomach with a grin before going back down once again with kisses popping wet on the other's skin.   
"N-Nagisa-kun..." Rei responds, then takes his glasses off to lay his arm over his eyes.  
Then Nagisa starts playing with his fingertips following the hipbones' lines that disappear into Rei's pants. The other sighs heavily, with another moan, moving his hips.   
Nagisa notices the swelling in his pants, and then giggles softly kissing Rei's stomach again.   
"I want to make Rei-chan come," Nagisa announces cheerfully, and picks Rei's hand pressing a big kiss on it.  
"I can see you're feeling better," Rei comments, and then presses his lips together for the excitement mounting between his legs. "Nagisa-kun," he whines then.  
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Nagisa replies satisfied, opening his pants and following his hipbones again, this time with his tongue.  
"Nagisa-kun!"  
"I can't do anything about it, I like them too much!" He replies, and then giggles softly, winking. Rei looks at him with another deep sigh. Nagisa stops to look at him maliciously and then, finally, he slides down to uncover Rei's still soft erection, but it takes him little time to make it swell. His fingers circle it gently, surround the crown, and then he closes his mouth softly around it to let Rei have enough stimuli to feel his head light. Just because he wants to hear Rei's voice lose its usual firmness and tremble. To know whether he can still give him pleasure. And Rei, as a reply, fists through his hair and holds him in his hand with a steadiness of his hips that he only obtained after practicing control and reason on himself, because Nagisa's wet and hot mouth could make him scream and come and scream again; instead he just arches his back slightly with little sighs. All those explosions happens inside of him when he waits to pour himself on Nagisa's tongue while fire laps at the wood; when he waits to feel the other keep him inside of his mouth during the entire orgasm, which Nagisa sucks on swallowing obscenely until Rei has nothing left to give. And then he lies next to the other with his eyes closed as Rei satisfies him with his own hand avoiding to spot the blanket, with the light of flames reflected on their skins glistening with sweat of excitement, while their half-empty bentō boxes lie forgotten.

Once all of this happens, as the fire burns quiet and jolly, Rei cleans up Nagisa's stomach carefully, and kisses him lethargic, panting. Nagisa looks at him with their previous conversation still fogging his mind a little.  
"Do you promise you won't find someone else better than me?" He asks, combing the other's dark hair with his hands. Rei catches his glasses again and fixes them on his nose, before replying.   
"For sure. You don't change a winning team."  
Nagisa's eyes glisten for a moment then he closes them, shivering.  
"Are you cold?" Rei asks, noticing.   
"No. I want to suck you off again and hear you call my name," Nagisa replies candidly. "Until tomorrow morning. And I want your parents to find us while I make you say obscenities and I want to smile and hold you and have lots of fun with you, Rei-chan!"  
Rei flushes red harder and harder, but then clears his throat.   
"Well, we'll have time for all of that. Minus our parents walking in on us, that's... no," he retorts, curling up.  
"But you'd blush! I love it when you blush, you're so cute..."  
Rei frowns, but then smiles wide, rolling his eyes. He holds Nagisa close, with his hands wandering around the smaller's naked back, wet with sweat but pleasant and warm nonetheless.   
"I'd give it another go," Nagisa announces, pushing his body against the other once more, making him lie down.   
"Nagisa-kun, I don't... I'm still- _ah_..." Rei moans, as Nagisa's hand swiftly starts pumping up and down on him. "N-Nagisa-kun!"  
"I wish I could hear you say my name like that for hours, Rei-chan..." Nagisa replies with a sweet voice, kissing his neck.   
Rei's fingers claw at the blanket, and finally he loses control unexpecting Nagisa's mouth tease him again and take care of him gently until his body trembles once more, but this time Nagisa spreads his leg straddling Rei's hips, and then lowers himself down to ride him.    
The firelight paints their silhouettes on the wall, mixed so close that the limits between one and another become unrecognizable.   
And then afterwards, while they lie down with their fingers tangled together gently, Nagisa whispers, "I am not afraid anymore."

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic puts together three inspirations: a porn fest's prompt "Rei has a fireplace, Nagisa wants to do it in front of it"; Reigisa Week's day 1 prompt "holding hands", and a reflexion on love from a post on tumblr about love being a choice, not a feeling. So I mixed them all up in this, and I hope it doesn't sound too much like bullshit... after all, I've never been in love. I don't even think I'm able to be. Anyway, well, this is a translation of an Italian fic I wrote, so apologies if it sounds weird, that might also be because I'm not anglophone. Also apologies about the mistakes!


End file.
